1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a revolvable device for winding and collecting cables or cord thereon. More particularly, this invention relates to a conveniently and flexibly adaptable and removable apparatus for winding and collecting cables, cords, or ropes thereon.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The winding of electrical cords or cables for storage after use of an electrical device, especially for portable computers or mobile appliances such as a vacuum cleaner or electrical chain saw, often becomes an awkward and unpleasant task. This is particularly true when the cables or cords are very long and easily entangled. For that reason, appliances or portable electronic devices which are better designed are often provided with an automatic cord-winding collector. A user of these types of devices or appliances no longer needs to bother with the task of handling very long and entangled cords.
FIGS. 1 shows such a prior art automatic cord-winding collector 10 for a portable computer. The cord-winding collector 10 includes a DC output cable 15 providing a DC voltage generated by an AC-to-DC adapter (not shown) for connecting to a portable computer. The cord-winding collector 10 also includes a top cover 20, a bottom chassis 30 for containing the wire collector therein. The cord-winding collector also has a spindle 40 and a cable-winder 50 for winding the cable 15 thereon. In odder to maintain electrical connection during the winding of the cable 15, the cable 15 is electricalIy connected to two contact plates 55 and 60 which serve as the positive and negative electrodes for maintaining constant contact with a circular contact trace 70 disposed on top of the contact plates 55 and 60. This type of cord-winding collector is well known and broadly applied in electrical devices where AC connections are employed for providing power supply to the devices. However, the contact points of the contact plates 55 and 60 with the circular contact trace generate additional resistance to the circuits providing the input power to the devices. This type of wire collector generally provide acceptable performance for devices applying AC input voltages. e.g., vacuum cleaner or chain saw. However, for other type of devices which require a DC voltage input, e.g., a portable computer, the additional resistance generated by such contacts may produce undesirable effects to both the performance and reliability.
Other than the problems for a wire winding collector applied to a DC power supply device for a notebook computer or other mobile electrical appliances as described above, most of the conventional cord-winding collectors are manufactured as a built-in mechanism for use by that particular computer or appliance only. For these appliances and devices which do no include a built-in wire winding and collecting mechanism, the tasks of handling long and entangled wires, cables, cords, or ropes after and before use still remain time-consuming chores to be repetitively performed whenever longer wires, cords or ropes are used.
Therefore, a need still exists for a new automatic-winding collector which is flexibly adaptable for application to different wires, cords, cables, or ropes in order to resolve these difficulties and limitations. Specifically, this new adapter design and configuration must be able to provide space savings and operation conveniences to satisfy modern applications for use in portable and mobile electronic devices and equipment wherein DC power supply is required, e.g., a portable computer with mobile office peripherals such as a scanner and printer. Additionally, it is desirable that this new collector can be easily adaptable for winding and collecting wires, ropes or cores where there are no built-in winding and collecting devices before or after their use.